I've seen a lot of confusion on the Blitz forums about how to go about selecting Crew Skills and spend all that Crew XP we all have saved up. Here's what I've gathered so far through my own experimentation and observation.

Choosing Skills From Previously Earned Crew XP

The first time you log in after downloading the update, you'll be presented with a screen saying you have "### Crew XP" to spend. It will take you to the Crew Skills distribution page where you'll see a screen like this:

Each skill can be leveled from 1-6 (I-VI). Pick a skill and hit the green "Acquire Skill" button, which will bring up a screen that tells you exactly how much Crew XP it will take to train it to the next level. If you're starting from scratch, it'll be to train it to Level I, which is 25,000 Crew XP. If you have that much, you'll fully train the skill to Level I. If you want to train it further to Level II (2), repeat the same process. If you want to train a different skill to its next level, pick that skill and hit the green button. If you do NOT have enough Crew XP to fully train it to the next level, you'll be left with a progress bar under that skill icon. Like these:

Once you have fully distributed ALL Crew XP for the tank type, you'll see that the red "!" icon disappears. The one skill in each type that is left with a progress meter is the one you'll now be training up while you play. I'll explain further how that works in a minute.

Here's where it gets tricky: You must spend ALL of your previously-earned Crew XP for it to save your choices and activate your skills. If you don't spend it all and exit this screen, your choices will not be saved and you'll have to do it all over again. There will also be a "Reset Skills" button at the bottom during this initial choosing, and you can Reset it anytime during this process for free.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Once you have chosen your skills and exited this screen to save and activate them, YOU CANNOT RESET THEM AGAIN.

Earning Crew XP and Training Up Crew Skills

Once you've made your choices above and have your 4 skills that you're now working on, go play like you always do. Any tank that you play that does NOT have 100% Crew Mastery yet will NOT earn Crew XP towards skills. It will solely be earning Crew Mastery %. However, once the Mastery reaches 100%, you'll start earning Crew Skills XP during every battle. After the battle that finally raises your Crew Mastery in a tank to 100%, you'll be presented with this screen:

It gives you the option there of choosing WG's "Recommended Skill" to train when you continue playing that particular tank category (Light, in this case), or to select a skill of your choosing (the green button).

If you've chosen to play a 100% Crew Mastery Light tank, for example, all XP you earn in the battle (including any X2 or whatever modifiers happen to be going) will also be earned as Crew XP on your skills screen for the currently in-progress Light Crew skill. In the picture above, that would be the Hasty Shot skill.

After any battle that completes a skill level mastery, you'll be presented with this screen:

At that point, you can click the grey "Recommended Skill" button if you wish to work on WG's suggested skill next, or you can press the green "Select Skill" to choose your own. Either way, what you are selecting is the NEXT skill to train, since you just finished one.

Crew XP earned in a tank category where you've already mastered all Crew Skills to Level 6 will accumulate in the same tank category. The current assumption is that new Crew Skills will be released in the future where you can spend this saved-up Crew XP, or some other functionality will be added where you can use it.

To get to the Crew Training page, choose any tank that has less than 100%, hit the Crew button to the left of Battle, the one that looks like 3 people.

Another feature added in the 1.5 update is on the Crew Mastery page, where it will show you exactly how much the existing tank's characteristics will be increased by training your crew to 100% Mastery. For example, on my T95 currently at 90% Crew Mastery, here's what that looks like:

If I were under 75%, I assume it would display how much the 75% Crew Mastery would affect the tank stats as well. Hit the Skills button in the lower left corner of this screen to be taken to the Crew Skills page.

Alternatively you can select any tank that has 100% Crew Mastery and press that same Crew button, which will immediately take you to the Crew Skills page.

How Much XP/Credits/Gold Do You Need to Get 75% or 100% Crew Mastery

Many thanks to Aventre3 for putting together this list! Sourced from here. As you might notice, the list is incomplete, so if you can help fill in the blanks, please comment below!

If you've been working on one Crew Skill and decide you'd rather be working on a different one earned in that tank type, for example you're working on Penetration Boost in the Medium type but want to work on Rage instead, you can do that! Click on the skill you want to change TO, and hit the "Train Skill" button. That will display a screen where you can move all of the currently earned Crew XP on the current skill to the desired skill, like this:

Press the "Change Skill" button and all of that Crew XP will be moved over to the new skill, leaving the old skill at its current level (Level II in the above example). All new Crew XP earned in Medium tanks will then apply toward the newly-chosen skill (Rage in the above example).

Accelerate Crew Skill Training with Free XP

Go to the Skills page, select any skill and hit the Accelerate Training button. It will then display a screen where you can convert Free XP to Crew XP. This conversion is FREE (as in, it does not cost Gold) and happens at the rate of 1 Free XP = 2 Crew XP. You can choose to apply as much Free XP to that particular skill as you wish to help level it up faster. So what does this mean if you have a Premium or Elite Tank with gobs of XP sitting on it? You first have to spend Gold to convert it to Free XP, and then you can convert that Free XP to Crew XP.

How Skills Apply to Tanks Being Played

Once any tank reaches 100% Crew Mastery, ALL currently acquired Crew Skills will then apply to that tank. Not only the ones in that tank type, not only the ones that have reached Level 6, but ALL of them Level 1 or higher. You want Smooth Turn and Smooth Ride in a Heavy tank? You got it!

The tank type displayed on the Crew Training page determines what tank you have to play to TRAIN that skill, NOT merely what tank that skill applies to during gameplay.

Training Costs for Crew Skill Levels

Level 0 -> Level I : 25,000 Crew XP

Level I -> Level II : 50,000 Crew XP

Level II -> Level III : 100,000 Crew XP

Level III -> Level IV : 200,000 Crew XP

Level IV -> Level V : 624,000 Crew XP

Level V -> Level VI : 1,000,000 Crew XP

Each skill costs a total of 1,990,000 Crew XP to fully train to Level 6. For Light Tanks, that's a total of 5,970,000 XP needed to train all 3 skills to Level 6. For Medium Tanks, Heavy Tanks, and Tank Destroyers, that's a total of 9,950,000 Crew XP needed to train all skills to Level 6.

All 18 Crew Skills yields a total of 167,160,000 Crew XP needed to max everything. Divide 167,160,000 by your Average XP and you get the total number of games needed to max all of your Crew Skills, assuming a start from scratch. You could even break that down further by subtracting the skills you've already raised from that 167,160,000 total. For example, if you had a skill at Level 3, subtract 175,000 (25,000+50,000+100,000) from that total.

How Long Until My Skill Levels Up?

Blitz update 1.10 added the ability to see how many more battles you need to play in order to finish mastering a skill to the next Level. When looking at an individual skill, click this button:

And you'll see a screen like this:

I'm assuming that the Battles Remaining counter is based on your personal "Average XP" stat.

Reset Individual Skill XP

Blitz update 1.10 also added the ability to reset the Crew XP earned in individual skills. If you click this button:

You'll be presented with a screen like this:

This process will remove ALL Crew XP earned on that skill and reset it back to Level 0. That Crew XP will then be applied to the Tank Category to which that Crew Skill belongs (ie. Medium, Light, etc.) and you will then be able to use that Crew XP to level up any other Crew Skill in that same Tank Category. Please note that this process does cost Gold, depending on the Level of the skill you are resetting.

Level 1 - 100 gold

Level 2 - 200 gold

Level 3 - 400 gold

Level 4 - 800 gold

Level 5 - 1,500 gold

Level 6 - 2,900 gold

Hope that helps!

Edited by CptCheez, 07 October 2015 - 04:57 PM.

"When the going gets tough and the stomach acids flow,
The cold wind of conformity is nipping at your nose.
When some trendy new atrocity has brought you to your knees
Come with us we'll sail the Seas of Cheese."

So I assume the skills are cumulative by level, because the descriptions don't change? In other words a Tier 3 skill gives a 3% increase or so on?

The amount that the skill will increase any particular characteristic goes up with level, yes. In other words, it might be 1% at Level I, 2% at Level 2, 3% at Level 3, etc. Or it might be 1% at Level 1, 3% at Level 2, 5% at Level 3, etc. Each skill is different.

"When the going gets tough and the stomach acids flow,
The cold wind of conformity is nipping at your nose.
When some trendy new atrocity has brought you to your knees
Come with us we'll sail the Seas of Cheese."

So the skills don't stack then, just wanted to make sure. Not 1+2+3 etc.

Not to my understanding, no.

"When the going gets tough and the stomach acids flow,
The cold wind of conformity is nipping at your nose.
When some trendy new atrocity has brought you to your knees
Come with us we'll sail the Seas of Cheese."

I will add to this guide that once you have all skills at V on a particular type of tank, all crew experience from that type of tank seems to be automatically split between skills being trained on other types of tanks.

For instance, I have all my Heavy skills at V. Now whenever I play a Heavy that would train the crew that Crew Exp gets evenly divided between the other three lines. So if I have a 1800 Exp game in a Premium Heavy 600 goes to the active skills on my Light, 600 to mediums and 600 to TDs. I tested it this morning and this is how it works. I believe this also stacks with Mentor V.

This means that you can run Premiums to generate Creds, "Free" Exp and Crew Exp all at once. Additionally the x2/3/5 Bonuses seem to apply, meaning that it is now more worthwhile to run multiple Elite tanks in your Garage at reset.

I don't know if there is a way to focus the Exp investment or to train multiple skills in one line.

Thanks for the guide much appreciated! Wish I read this before I made my final selections but oh well. There still seems to be a little confusion as to when exactly a crew skill becomes active for game purposes. Is it when a skill is at lvl 1 and it gots increasing better up thru 5, or does the skill not work at all until you hit Mastery?